Environmental prices are indices used for calculating the price to society of environmental pollution and expressing that price in Euros per kilogram pollutant. Environmental prices thus represent the economic welfare losses occurring when one additional kilogram of the pollutant is emitted to the environment. Such environmental prices can also be used for ‘immaterial’ pollution such as noise nuisance or radioactivity. In such cases the shadow price is expressed in Euros per unit of nuisance (in decibels, for example). In most cases these environmental prices are equal to external costs.
Environmental prices give average values in the Netherlands for emissions from a particular emission source at an average emission location in the year 2015. This Environmental Pricing Manual provides values for over 500 environmentally hazardous substances at three levels: an upper and lower bound recommended for use in social cost-benefit analyses (SCBAs) and a central value that can be used by companies and in life cycle assessments (LCAs).
The Environmental Pricing Manual 2017 replaces the Shadow Price Manual from 2010